(Author: Gita Gordon, Vol. 66, #2, Rosh Hashanah 2011)
The latest royal wedding has brought back memories of another royal occasion, in a time and place far removed from 21st Century London.
At that time I was three years old, so perhaps “memories” is the wrong word. The memories are those of my mother and grandmother, told and retold to me countless times, of the Royal Visit of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and the two young Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, to South Africa in 1947.
My mother has always begun her the story with, “The Queen passed right in front of me, so close, I could see her beautiful complexion.”
At that time, my mother was the doctor’s wife in Thaba N’chu, in the eastern Orange Free State. My parents had spent the war years in Pretoria and Port Elizabeth, where my father served in the army as a doctor, while my mother volunteered as a nurse for the Red Cross.
Perusing the Friend newspaper one day, my mother saw a notice that the Royal Family would be visiting Bloemfontein. Red Cross volunteers were to form the guard of honour at a garden party in the grounds of the town zoo.
My mother immediately penned a letter reminding the Red Cross of her war services, and requesting the opportunity to participate in the royal event. To her delight, she was accepted and, leaving behind her husband and two small daughters, she travelled about a hundred miles along a dusty road to help welcome the Royal Family.
My mother still smiles as she recalls the excitement of seeing the two princesses, and how beautiful they were, and the lovely smile of the Queen, adding that upon her return home to Thaba N’chu, she found it difficult to concentrate on her everyday duties.
Her mother Becky, my grandmother, experienced the royal guests in a quite different manner.
At that time, my grandmother was living in Clocolan. I remember the central square, and the town hall that showed films once a week, and the four general dealer shops, and the chemist and the two Greek-run cafes.
As grandmother told it, one night the train carrying the royal entourage through the vast territories made its way en route to Ladybrand. While there were stops scheduled at a number of small stations on the way, according to her, Clocolan had not been designated for this honour. My mother says now that it was on the schedule, but after searching the Internet without finding any reference to Clocolan in the Royal tour, I remain faithful to my grandmother’s account of the story.
In Clocalan in those days, when we made phone calls, we would turn a handle on the phone, and a woman on the other end of the line would ask to whom we wanted to be put through. The conversation would then go something like this: “I want Mrs Venter, the one who is a teacher.” Instead of connecting the call, the operator would reply, “She isn’t home right now. She went visiting. Try again in about an hour.”
So, in the late hours of this particular summer night, when the royal train suddenly came to a halt at the Clocolan station (a deserted spot about four miles from the town), the station master naturally telephoned his wife to inform her of the momentous event. His wife just had to call her friend to let her know, and the lady on the telephone exchange also called a friend, and very soon a lengthy procession of cars began winding its way in the silent darkness towards the tiny station.
The station master looking out across the veld saw with alarm the twinkling stream of car lights heading towards him. He called the village policeman for help. By this time, a number of the villagers had arrived and, being quite excited, they made rather a noise, rousing the Queen from her sleep.
Now according to my grandmother, who heard it from her friend, who was in turn a friend of the station master’s wife, when the Queen asked what was happening, and it was explained to her that the villagers had come to catch a glimpse of the royal train, she sent a message to the crowd gathered outside that everyone should return to the village and wait at the Town Hall. Her Royal Highness then woke up her family and they all dressed up in suits and hats and drove, at midnight, down the dusty road to the Town Hall, where by now practically the entire town was assembled.
My grandmother had found herself a good spot, right at the front. She exclaimed, as the Queen passed directly by, “Oh, but what beautiful eyes you have!”
The Queen stopped, and looked into my grandmother’s blue eyes and responded, “But you have beautiful eyes too.”
Then the Royal Family walked into the Town Hall, and onto the platform and the hall filled up and I suppose there must have been speeches of some sort, but as for my grandmother, all she could tell me about were her words to the Queen and the Queen’s words to her.
My grandmother’ beautiful blue eyes sparkled as she told the story. Her face lit up with pleasure as she recalled the events, so fresh to her even though they had taken place long ago, before one of the princesses became the next Queen.
Now, as a grandmother myself, I think of a woman sleeping after an arduous day of duties and long-distance travel, and who will be facing more of the same the following day and the one after that. Yet she realizes how disappointed people will be that the train stopped at their station, and they were not able to see the Royal Family. So she wakes up her equally tired husband and children, sees that they dress in an appropriately Royal fashion, and is driven with them through the cold night air to give pleasure and excitement to these villagers, her people, in this small isolated place in Africa.
How times have changed! Cell phones and video calls are “in”, and the old-fashioned phone with a handle to make contact with the telephone exchange lady are things of the distant past. Today I watched archive newsreels of that Royal tour on my computer (though not the midnight stop in Clocolan), followed by clips of Kate and Harry’s wedding. The Princess Elizabeth, who accompanied her parents in the Bloemfontein zoo and the little town hall in Clocolan, is now a Queen who has just rejoiced in her grandson’s marriage.
So much has happened in South Africa since those days when the Royal train wound its way through the country, to continue on to the then Southern and Northern Rhodesia. But that selfless and truly royal act of the Queen Mother and her family, on that long ago night in a small Free State hamlet, is a reminder to me that a kind deed is never forgotten.
Gita Gordon’s articles and stories have appeared in Jewish newspapers and publications throughout the world.Her books include: South African Journeys (Judaica Press – Hebrew translation, Temurot, Jerusalem Publications), Flashback (Shaar Press), Mystery in the Amazon (Jerusalem Publications) and Scattered Blossoms (Hamodia Publications).
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